The story
begins with King Derwin of Didd looking down on his realm from the window of
his castle, and Bartholomew looking back up from his family hut at the edge of
the fields beyond the village.

The story
has to do with the difference of perspective on the same world when seen from
different vantage points.

Not long
before that, I was at a vocational threshold, shifting to a seminary role with
emphasis on the educational dimension of ministry.

A mentor
offering help for making that transition suggested that I read a recent book by
Paulo Freire, “The Pedagogy of the Oppressed.”

Now a
classic in the area of liberating education, this book offered a philosophy of
education that focused on what the victims of oppression have to teach by
reflecting on their experience as a perspective for looking at the larger task
of educating the human family.

In our
time of increasing awareness of the widening gap of economic inequality and the
systems that perpetuate it, and amid conflicting perspectives on a just and
faithful response, Dr. Seuss and Paulo Freire have teamed up to remind me that
a perspective of need and a perspective of privilege have two very different
views of the world that is shared by both.

Further,
they offer a suggestion that in order to understand that world and move it in a
healthy direction, both are needed at the table where the nourishment for
community is prepared and served.

The
legacies of need and privilege are both “givens” in our culture, and the heirs
of those realities are there not as a matter of choice in most instances.

Ethnicity,
gender, nationality and frameworks of opportunity have significant influence on
whether a person bears the burden of need or enjoys the benefits of privilege.

The
understandable passions of relief from need and of protection of privilege do
not make good partners in an effort to move toward the kind of community
focused on a common good.

Those who
have suffered the injustice of exclusion and exploitation see and feel very
keenly the unfairness of their path.

Those who
have benefitted from more fortunate advantage often do not feel any direct
responsibility for a situation they neither created nor think they control.

There is
no inherent virtue in suffering from an injustice, and there is no inherent
vice in being among the privileged. Most of the time, neither is a matter of
choice.

Perhaps
the focus of a faithful response to this apparent impasse might be an ethics of
stewardship of both the legacy of need and the legacy of privilege.

Like
Bartholomew Cubbins in the Dr. Seuss tale and the oppressed of Freire’s
real-life companions, those who know firsthand the experience of inherited
disadvantage have a perspective on life that persons of other stations do not
have.

A
stewardship of that experience and perspective would be to value, listen to and
learn from those whose view is through the lens of that experience, and to
allow that perspective to broaden and enrich other perspectives on the world we
all share.

The
legacy of privilege may face a greater challenge for this stewardship.

The order
of life in the Kingdom of Didd was determined by King Derwin and those who
managed his system, just as the oppressed in Freire’s world were dominated by
the alliance of economics, politics and religion that controlled that society.

Like the
king, privilege can be unaware that the world is anything other than what it
sees from its vantage point, and it can respond with a defensive and protective
stance that resists any threat to its benefits.

When
challenged for the limitations of its vision, denial and protection are typical
responses.

But there
are examples enough to point to ways that privilege can be used to serve a
greater good beyond one’s own benefit.

The
choice may not be whether to “be privileged” in the ways that our legacies
provide.

Rather,
the choice seems to be what kind of stewardship of that privilege one might
embrace – denial, protection or a use of its benefits in the service of moving
toward wholeness for the human family and, indeed, all of creation.

To hoard
and protect, or to use as a means of service, seems to be the choice in the
matter.

Paul
offers an affirmation in Philippians 2:5-8 of what following Jesus in this
matter might suggest about the choice:

“Have
this mind within you, that you also have in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in
the form of God, did not regard oneness with God as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in human
likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient
to the point of death – even death on a cross.”